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Youth Education Resource Guide

Classroom

Family History in the Classroom
Download for free: PDFiBook
A team of educators explore family history in their classrooms using the Ancestry, Newspapers.com, and Fold3 databases. Enhanced digital textbook which features video, images, interactive presentations, and downloadable handouts.

Finding Your Roots
Home Page
PBS Learning Media
Seedlings in the Classroom

Starter Kits

Genealogy Forms Starter Kit
Everything you need to organize and present your family research: five generation charts, family group sheets, cemetery sheets, correspondence logs, research logs, and photo inventory sheets. Printed on high-quality archival paper that won’t yellow or crumble.

Genealogy Kit for Kids
This family activity kit is designed to get boys and girls curious about their family history. Helps teach children family history, geography, cultural traditions, and more! Contains research pages, including fan charts, interview sheets, and maps. There are 31 paper sheets in all.

  

Websites

New England Historic Genealogical Society
AmericanAncestors.org
Easy-to-do activities that will keep kids entertained and get them thinking about their family history. These exercises are designed to teach critical skills while encouraging kids to explore their personal connection to the past.

FamilySearch.org
https://www.familysearch.org/discovery/
In-Home and online activities designed for the whole family. Easy to access online.

Ancestry.com
AncestryK12
AncestryK12 offers grants providing one year of access to Ancestry Classroom, Fold3, and Newspapers.com to selected classrooms and schools.

Children’s Books

Title: National Geographic Kids Guide to Genealogy
Author: T.J. Resler
Age Range: 8 - 12
Grade Level: 3 -7
American Ancestors Library Catalog:https://library.nehgs.org/record=b1110240~SO

What does your family tree look like? Where do its roots lead? Are you related to royalty? Start your very own journey and find out with this activity-packed guide to genealogy! This lively guide will get you started on researching your family's past and let you in on the newest and most up-to-date technology for genealogy research.

Title: The Kids' Family Tree Book
Author: Caroline Leavitt
Age Range: 8 - 12
Grade Level: 3 - 7
American Ancestors Library Catalog:https://library.nehgs.org/record=b1110242~SO

Dig deep into your family history with the updated edition of this popular, informative guide! With these research ideas and creative projects, young would-be genealogists can get the knowledge they crave. Find out how to gather ancestry information on the Internet, interview family members, reach relatives through social media, check the National Archives for passenger lists of newly arrived immigrants, and uncover clues in old photos and records. Preserve the material you've gathered in an online scrapbook or create a crayon batik family tree. Keep the togetherness going by planning a family reunion, starting a family newsletter, and more.

Title: Turning Little Hearts: Over 80 Activities to Connect Children with their Ancestors
Author: Charlotte Barnes, Jonah Barnes
Age Range: 8 - 10
Grade Level: 3 - 4

This book is full of interactive family history activities for kids. Children who know their family stories are more confident, resilient, successful, and happy. But getting a child to sit down and listen to a long history story can be nearly impossible. With this book, parents and grandparents can share their stories in fun and meaningful ways. Activities include treasure hunts, playing games, dressing up, fort building, picture colorizing, language learning, jewelry making, puzzle solving, flower planting, birthday celebrating, map making, poem writing, and much more.

Title: My Family Tree and Me
Age Range: 3 -7
Grade Level: Preschool - 2
American Ancestors Library Catalog:https://library.nehgs.org/record=b1108696~SO

This title lends itself to discussions on multiculturalism in families and in the larger community. This one-of-a-kind picture book provides a beautifully simple introduction to the concept of family ancestry. It uses two stories in one to explore a small boy's family tree.

Title: Who's In My family?: All About Our Families
Author: Robie H. Harris
Age Range: 3 - 7
Grade Level: Preschool - 2
American Ancestors Library Catalog:https://library.nehgs.org/record=b1110357~SO

Accessible, humorous, and full of charming illustrations depicting families of many configurations, this engaging story interweaves conversations between the siblings and a matter-of-fact text, making it clear to every child that whoever makes up your family, it is perfectly normal — and totally wonderful.

Title: Remember That?: A Year-by-Year Chronicle of Fun Facts, Headlines, & Your Memories
Author: Allison Dolan

Take a trip down memory lane with this interactive trivia book of headlines, fads, sports, music and more from 1930 to 2010. Inside, you'll find year-by-year snapshots of the events and trends that shaped our lives. Family milestone fill-in pages for each year help you capture your memories of the things you loved and the events that touched your life.

Title:Barnicle and Husk: The Adventure Begins
Author: Mary Shields
Age Range: 7 - 10
Grade Level: 3 - 6
American Ancestors Library Catalog:https://library.nehgs.org/record=b1111074~SO

Can a cat and mouse explore the world together? Can Husk survive without the only family he has ever known? This fun and lively historical novel transports readers to a different time. See what life was like through the eyes of these two unlikely friends!

Title: Families, Families, Families!
Author: Suzanne and Max Lang
Age Range: 3 - 7
Grade Level: Preschool - 2
American Ancestors Library Catalog:https://library.nehgs.org/record=b1110356~SO

Moms, dads, sisters, brothers — and even Great Aunt Sue — appear in dozens of combinations, demonstrating all kinds of nontraditional families! Silly animals are cleverly depicted in framed portraits, and offer a warm celebration of family love.

Title: Me and My Family Tree
Author: Joan Sweeney
Age Range: 3 - 7 years
Grade Level: Preschool - 2
American Ancestors Library Catalog:https://library.nehgs.org/record=b1108697~S0

Sweeney demystifies an abstract concept by presenting it from a child's point of view. In Me and My Family Tree, a young girl uses simple language, her own childlike drawings, and diagrams to explain how the members of her family are related to each other and to her. Clear, colorful, detailed artwork and a fill-in family tree in the back help make the parts of the family—from siblings to grandparents to cousins--understandable to very young readers.

Title: Gittel's Journey: An Ellis Island story
Author: Lesléa Newman, Amy June Bates
Age Range: 5 - 8 years
Grade Level: K - 3
American Ancestors Library Catalog:https://library.nehgs.org/record=b1111648~S0

Both a heart-wrenching and heartwarming story, Gittel’s Journey offers a fresh perspective on the immigration journey to Ellis Island. The book includes an author’s note explaining how Gittel’s story is based on the journey to America taken by Lesléa Newman’s grandmother and family friend.

Dustin Axe

Youth Genealogy Curriculum Coordinator

Dustin is a licensed teacher with more than 15 years of experience teaching a variety of subjects to students in informal educational settings.